Globalising Housework

This book shows how international influences profoundly shaped the English home of Victorian and Edwardian London; homes which, in turn, influenced Britains (and Britons) place on the world stage. The period between 1850 and 1914 was one of fundamental global change, when London homes were subject to new expanding influences that shaped how residents cleaned, ate, and cared for family. It was also the golden age of domesticity, when the making and maintaining of home expressed peoples experience of society, class, race, and politics. Focusing on the everyday toil of housework, the chapters in this volume show the English home as profoundly global conglomeration of people, technology, and things. It examines a broad spectrum of sources, from patents to ice cream makers, and explores domestic histories through original readings and critiques of printed sources, material culture, and visual ephemera.